3. Supplementary memorandum from the Disability
Rights Commission
Our original evidence was submitted in April
2003. A major focus of our comments was on the need for the Government
to introduce new legislation protecting disabled people from discrimination,
and more generally promoting their equality. Much has happened
on this issue since our original submission, and we attempt to
summarise these developments here.
We refer in our submission to our forthcoming
Legislative Review. This was published in May 2003 (Disability
Equality: Making it Happen), copies available from the Disability
Rights Commission. The main recommendations were as outlined in
our original submission.
Regulations amending the employment provisions
of the DDA and implementing the European Framework Directive were
promulgated in July 2003 and will come into force in October 2004.
This may assist in relation to instances of direct discrimination.
However, our concerns regarding indirect discrimination, outlined
in our earlier submission, remain.
A draft Disability Discrimination Bill was published
by the Government in December 2003. This Bill will amend the Disability
Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) in a number of very significant
ways.
A Joint Committee scrutinised the draft Bill,
reporting in 27 May 2004, and made a number of significant proposals
for strengthening the Bill. The Government responded to the Joint
Committee's Report on 15 July 2004.
The contents of the Bill, as indicated by the
Government's Response to the Scrutiny Committee, will go a long
way to redressing the problems highlighted in our earlier submission.
The Bill will include the following provisions:
— The definition of disability will
be extended to clearly include more people with HIV, cancer and
multiple sclerosis from the point of diagnosis (at present coverage
of these conditions is not guaranteed).
— The requirement that a person claiming
protection should establish (amongst other things) that it is
"clinically well recognised" will be removed.
— The Bill provides for the extension
of the DDA to cover discrimination in relation to transport (at
present only the transport infrastructure is covered.)
— An "end date" by which
all passenger rail vehicles should comply with rail accessibility
regulations will be introduced.
— Accessibility regulations will be
introduced to apply to refurbishment of existing rolling stock—at
the moment, the regulations apply only to new build trains.
— A reserve power will be taken to
remove the continuing exemptions of air and ship travel.
— A duty to promote disability equality
will be placed on the public sector (this parallels the Race Relations
Amendment Act).
— The DDA will cover most functions
of public authorities. There is presently a lack of clarity, for
example, relating to disabled prisoners and access to pavements
and highways.
— The DDA's duties on landlords and
managers of premises will be extended to include a duty to make
reasonable adjustments to policies, practices and procedures and
provide auxiliary aids and services, where reasonable, to enable
a disabled person to rent a property and facilitate a disabled
tenant's enjoyment of the premises.
— Any club with 25 or more members
will be covered by the Act. This is likely to impact upon political
parties.
These measures are very welcome and go along
way to strengthening the framework of disabled people's rights.
However, we still have a number of concerns outstanding from our
original submission, all of which were recommended for action
by the Joint Committee:
— Landlords should not be allowed to
withhold consent unreasonably from a disabled person to make changes
to the physical features of the premises, although the landlord
should not have to meet the costs. The DRC receives many calls
from people in this situation.
— The list of normal day to day activities
should be revised to include: "the ability to communicate
with others" and to ensure that self-harming behaviour is
covered.
— For individuals whose day-to-day
activities are substantially affected as a result of depression
the requirement that the effects last 12 months should be reduced
to six months.
— Progressive conditions should be
covered from the point of diagnosis, rather than (as at present)
from the point at which the condition has an effect on day-to-day
activities.
— Discrimination because of an association
with a disabled person or because a person is mistakenly treated
as a disabled person should be made unlawful.
In summary, since our earlier submission substantial
progress has been made in strengthening disabled people's rights,
and we look forward to speedy passage and implementation of the
Disability Discrimination Bill.
July 2004
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